


Rejection

by anothercuriousmind



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Marichat | Adrien Agreste as Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-13
Updated: 2019-11-13
Packaged: 2021-01-29 20:04:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21415900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anothercuriousmind/pseuds/anothercuriousmind
Summary: "“I’m sorry Marinette, you’re an amazing person and I care about you-““-but I like someone else, Chat.”"-Rejection is a miserable ordeal, and Marinette and Chat Noir have each experienced it. Is it irony or fate that causes them to turn to one another for comfort? But who better to soothe the wounds than the one who inflicted them?-This is a silly, cracky fic, my first offering to the fandom that has slowly begun to consume my mind and spirit.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 7
Kudos: 163





	Rejection

**Author's Note:**

> So I've been silently hovering on the fringe of this fandom for almost three years now (something about the character dynamic gets me - clearly I'm not alone in that), and I've got a few dozen fics for ML that I've been hoarding but didn't think I'd publish. As an extremely introverted person I was good there, until Season 3 part two started dropping and hit me like a bombshell; now I feel like I have to be involved just to stay sane. So if you're reading, and as wrecked as I am, here's hoping we can forge a connection in this madness. Thank you for bearing with a self-indulgent author's note that did not clarify the work at all.

“I’m sorry Marinette, you’re an amazing person and I care about you-“

“-but I like someone else, Chat.”

—

Rejection wasn’t enjoyable on either end. Adrien's throat and ears burned as he leapt across familiar rooftops, not really seeing where he was going. Running away wasn’t his first response to Ladybug’s reply to his suit, given in words nearly identical to those he had said to Marinette just that morning, but after a tightly pulled together reassurance that his care for her as a partner and friend did not change, he needed to leave. Her eyes had brimmed with sympathy and concern, and it was tempting to fall apart there and let her comfort him- but that would be temporary balm leading to worse pain. His disappointment needed to be felt, but she didn’t deserve guilt in payment for her gently given honesty. He knew she would feel it anyway- because his was still burning through him.

Marinette would almost certainly have felt the same after confessing to him. 

With the thought came a sharp dose of reality as Chat realized he had mindlessly brought himself to a rooftop kiddy-corner to the home, and critically the window, of the girl in question.

A short war was fought and lost within him as he debated going to that window. He worried she’d rather be left alone, but he wanted to check on her, and needed a human connection and friend- hopefully she felt the same, or he would face the shame of hurting his friend twice in a day. Well, night now, he thought wirily. 

Chat peeked surreptitiously into the room that had become familiar over the past months of visits, half certain his friend- he hoped he could still call her that- would be asleep. To his relief, she wasn’t. From his vantage he could see her sitting on her floor with her knees bent and back propped against the desk. She was curled in on herself, except for her head, which was tilted back, eyes closed as that was the only part of her that she had allowed to relax. The wall behind her, once filled with magazine photos, was blank. A pile of glossy paper was stacked neatly at her feet. 

He lifted his hand and knocked softly.

—

Today had sucked. 

If Marinette had to find one positive for the day, it was that she had finally put to rest the manic drive to her borderline-stalking obsession. After the eventful patrol with Chat this evening she had been filled with a restless need to do something, to somehow move forward. So she had thrown out the detailed planner of Adrien’s schedule, unpicked the first inches of a sweater she had started knitting for his birthday, and finally taken down the photos of Adrien from her wall. She moved in an efficient and silent stupor as Tikki watched sympathetically from her perch on the desk, munching toward the end of a cookie. Her tasks had taken no more than ten minutes, but when Marinette finished she felt exhausted, as though all her will had drained out, and she slumped back against her desk. Tikki settled on her chosen’s lap. 

“Did that help you to feel any better?” the Kwami asked.

“No.” the girl didn’t move her head or open her eyes, though tears had begun to slowly leak from their corners. She sniffed. “But I needed to do it. I wish I knew what else to do. I don’t know how to fix any of this and then I also hurt Chat-“ her voice broke on a sob at her partner’s name as she fought for control. 

“You were honest with him about your feelings. You did the best you could.” Tikki nuzzled into her hands. 

“You’re right, it’s just…” she sighed, thumping her head against the desk. “I wish things could be different. I guess that’s obvious… I guess… I don’t know what I want to happen next.”

“Maybe you should get some sleep, and revisit tomorrow.” Tikki suggested gently. “It’s been a difficult day, it’s possible-“

She was stopped from continuing by a soft rap on the window. Marinette started, cupping Tikki in her hands- an unnecessary precaution as the kwami was already blocked from view by the girl’s knees. Marinette’s eyes flashed to the window and connected with the sheepish gaze of the very cat of whom she had just been speaking. She sprang up, deposited Tikki gently in the uppermost desk drawer, and moved to the window.

“Chat Noir?” she inquired as she pushed open the hatch, though she knew well that no one else came to visit this late, nor from that entrance.

“Hey princess,” he grinned, but she saw the wobble at the end of his familiar smile, “Your light was on, so I figured if you might give a bit of shelter to a stray.” An edge of uncertainty belied the confidence in his voice.

“You can come in.” Marinette hid her eager concern as she stepped aside for her partner. As Ladybug she couldn’t do anything to support him, since it was her rejection that caused him to need support. But maybe as Marinette she could help. Besides, she was still stinging from her day, and welcomed the company. As supportive as Alya and Tikki were, there was no one she trusted so much as her partner. Even after everything, she was most comfortable with him, even if he didn’t know his two friends were secretly merged into one.

Chat dropped lightly into the room with a relieved sigh he tried to hide. Marienette checked her concern, trying to find a way to talk to him without revealing what no one but Ladybug could know.

“This is late for you to drop by, Chat - is everything okay?”

Chat’s bravado warred with a desire for sympathy as he met her eyes. This isn’t about you, Adrien chided himself, check in with her. 

“Can’t I just want to visit my favorite civilian?” He smiled, guarded eyes turning sympathetic. “I wanted to make sure my princess in the tower was alright.” He cautiously reached out a gloved finger to brush at a mostly dried tear lingering on the girl’s cheek, moving slow enough that she could pull away if she wished.

Marinette flushed, and reached up to rub her reddened eyes in an attempt to banish any sign of sorrow. She backed up to sit down on her desk chair. “Today has been… not great.”

Chat flopped himself onto her chaise. “Want to talk about it?” He gestured to the discarded pictures on the floor. “Boy trouble?”

“Actually yeah, and it would be nice to clear the air. My friends are trying to be supportive, but they’re his friends as well, and I don’t want them to get worked up when he didn’t do anything wrong.” Chat nodded encouragingly for her to continue. “Well… I got rejected today. There’s a boy I’ve liked… actually since the first day I knew him.” 

Adrien wasn’t quick enough to hide his surprise. “The first day?” he sputtered.

Marnette laughed self-deprecatingly. “Well, not right away, but yeah. I actually misjudged him at first, but then he went out of his way to talk to me and clear up the misunderstanding. And I realized how thoughtful and truly kind he is. He’s a really good person, always thinking about others.” Adrien hoped his mask was hiding the heat he could feel creeping into his cheeks. He’d assumed Marinette’s feelings were shallower, unused to receiving attention for anything deeper than his name and image. But if his blush was visible, Marinette didn’t notice. “He even gave me his umbrella to walk home. Oh!” She jumped up and hurried to her closet at the sudden memory, pulling out the blue umbrella she had just referenced, “I should probably find a way to give this back. I’ve been silly holding onto it.” She laid the umbrella next to the pile of photos. “Anyway, it turns out he never thought anything about me.” Adrien felt a pang of guilt at the statement. He’d thought he understood Marinette, but he had horribly misjudged her stumbling conversation around him. “I thought maybe… we spent more time together, and I finally got the courage to tell him how I felt and he… well, he said he liked someone else, but I think that was just a blow off- he’s never shown any interest in any other girl in the class.” Adrien winced. No he hadn’t, he’d had eyes only for Ladybug - but that wasn’t something he, as Adrien, who as far as anyone knew had never met the superhero, couldn’t admit with any dignity.

Marinette shook herself, as though suddenly remembering the presence of the boy in her room. The boy she knew was hurting, because she, unknown to him, had been the one who landed the blow. “What about you?” She asked gently, “You never said what was wrong when you got here, and… I’m here if you need to talk.”

Adrien sighed. He didn’t really want to admit what had happened between him and Ladybug that night, as though by not acknowledging it he could pretend it was no more than a bad dream. But he knew he needed to face the truth, and, besides Plagg, who was not the most sympathetic of human matters, there were only two people to whom he could acknowledge this side of himself. Besides, he reasoned, misery loves company. Although she didn’t know it, he and Marinette were in this together.

He gathered himself to begin, a self-depreciating smirk forming on his mouth. “Actually, it wasn’t too different from what happened between you and that boy.” Referring to himself in the third person left a bitter taste in his mouth, but he couldn’t apologize for his callous obliviousness without jeopardizing his identity. He pressed on, finally letting out the words he’d wanted to say for too long now “There this girl, and she amazing - smart, brave, beautiful.” Marinette forced herself to keep her eyes up, fighting the urge to duck at the compliments. “I fell in love with her almost from the moment I met her, and I’ve just gotten deeper in it the longer I’ve known her.” It took great effort not to voice her surprise at the depths of his feelings. For so long she had bushed off Chat’s words as casual flirting, never suspecting the deeper emotions below the banter.

They sat in silence after his confession, each pondering their disappointed hopes and new revelations. After a few minutes Marinette sighed, “I almost wish I could make all those months disappear. There’s so many bad memories- I’ve really been an idiot. Like these pictures- they aren’t even personal, like you’re supposed to have of someone you care about because you can be together and not be weird. I thought I liked him for more than his celebrity image, but what do I know? I couldn’t even string two sentences together when he’s around, let alone have a real conversation and get to know him.”

“I don’t,” Chat confessed, considering her wish. “It might be easier to cut off the feelings, but there is too much I can miss. Even if I’m only ever her par- her friend,” he caught himself, holding onto the shred of possibility that Marinette my not explicitly know who was the focus of his affections, “that is still very important to me. She’s very important to me.”

Marinette felt warm at the earnestness in her partner’s voice. “Well,” she said in a small voice, “you never know.”

Chat turned to her with a considering look. “Yeah,” he agreed, “you never do.”

—

Chat left that night feeling calmer with the lightened burden of guilt and isolation, and Marinette fell asleep shortly after, ignoring for a little while the new and complicated emotions her partner had inspired.

The next day she found a single pink rose left on her balcony. From the package under the rose she pulled out a picture she had seen before- her, Alya, Nino and Adrien posed together around a completed science project. What was new as the addition of a frame and a note in neat writing: Some memories are worth holding onto. 

She let the question of how Chat had acquired the photo slip out of her mind as she smiled out over the Parisian skyline. Some people were also worth holding onto, whatever it took.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, there it is- my first completed fic for this universe. I’m sure it’s amateurish, full of cliches, and disappointingly short on puns, but I enjoy exploring the unique situations and emotions these characters offer, so it’s very likely I’ll be revisiting them soon - hopefully with less angst and more romance. If you’re so inclined, I’d appreciate feedback on the writing- fan fiction is my attempt to improve, so I’d love to know what’s working and what isn’t. Thank you for your eyes, and happy reading!


End file.
